The "NSA Affair" still commands German headlines. Over the weekend, the news was dominated by the fit-for-a-spy-novel revelations that the top floor of the U.S. Embassy on Pariser Platz (overlooking the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag) apparently housed equipment and officials that listened in on Chancellor Merkel’s calls. There is a great picture here. It all seems so 20th Century.

The central theme of Carrie's post critiquing proposals for FISA reform appears to be that there are already too many lawyers and too much oversight of how the NSA conducts "foreign intelligence surveillance," and so any proposals to increase these accountability mechanisms by appointing some kind of "special advocate" are necessarily myopic insofar as they (1) are not likely to accomplish all that much vis-a-vis the status quo; and (2) fail to appreciate that we already have "the most oversight-laden foreign intelligence activ

There's a lot to say about Peter Margulies' reply to my and Kevin Heller's criticisms of the "former government officials'" amicus brief in al Bahlul--the military commission appeal currently pending before the en banc D.C.

In recent posts both on Lawfare and at Opinio Juris, Steve and Kevin Jon Heller (here and here) sharply critiqued the brief that Jim Schoettler and I filed on Thursday for Former